译Pitchfork评Zara Larsson 2021年专辑《Poster Girl》（潮派女孩）

翻译：Nomanlandever

Years into her solo career, Larsson is still just a disembodied voice floating over the beat. On her third album, she tries out some different sounds, but the result comes off like a Who's-Who of 2011 radio.  

个人出道多年后，Zara Larsson仍然只是一个漂浮在节奏上的虚无之声。在第三张录音室专辑中，她尝试不同风格，但成果却像某人在2011年发行的电台热单。

Zara Larsson makes breezy, digestible electro-pop: all shine, but no substance. She found her niche in the years after EDM crept into pop, crooning over bright, sanitized synths on her 2015 breakout track “Lush Life” and sighing over wobbling bass on Kygo and Clean Bandit tracks, her voice reduced to a murmur. On her third album, Poster Girl, Larsson attempts to incorporate Dua Lipa–style disco, with stabs at the kind of retro gloss that filled Lady Gaga and The Weeknd’s albums last year. But the record sounds more like a sun-splashed artifact from decade-old pop charts, filled with dated references and fizzy hooks, clunky metaphors and boundless optimism. Even when Larsson stays firmly in her comfort zone, she struggles to convey a sense of character or identity. Years into her solo career, she’s still just a disembodied voice floating over the beat.

Zara Larsson喜欢做轻快，抓耳的electro-pop：光芒四射，但缺少实质内容。在EDM侵袭流行音乐后的几年，她找准了自身定位，在2015年首支大红单曲 “Lush Life”中在明快简练的合成器节奏下低吟浅唱， 在Kygo与Clean Bandit的合作曲中随摆动低音咏叹，她的声音被削减成咕哝声。在第三张专辑《Poster Girl》中，Zara Larsson尝试融入Dua Lipa式的迪斯科风情，也尝试为专辑增添类似Lady Gaga和The Weeknd去年专辑的复古光彩。但这张专辑听起来更像在东施效颦十年前的流行热单，充斥着过时的引用，轻浮hook片段，笨重的隐喻和盲从的乐观。尽管有时她想通过“舒适区旧风格”的歌曲，费劲打造出一种专属”Zara Larsson“的独特人格或形象。但个人出道多年后，Zara Larsson仍只是一个漂浮在节奏上的虚无之声。

These are wispy songs, and Larsson’s at her best when she allows them to drift and dissolve.  “Need Someone” melts over a knock-off Tame Impala bassline. “Ruin My Life” starts with fluffy strings before receding tastefully into the middle distance. These are pool-party soundtracks, songs to hum while driving around—pleasant at times, but mostly just tolerable. Too much of the album is hindered by grating, overly accessorized production: hand claps and layered, distorted vocals, theatrical spritzes of synths. On “WOW,” Marshmello slings Larsson’s limp vocals over teetering bass, looping her deadening “Make your jaw drop–drop” hook 10 times in a row.

以下是专辑中”稀疏半成品“的歌曲，Zara Larsson做出最好的尝试就是让这些歌曲随意漂浮和溶解。歌曲“Need Someone”消融于低配Tame Impala式的bass线中， “Ruin My Life”以蓬松的吉他弦声开头，吉他声之后优雅地隐去。全专都是专属泳池派对的歌曲，适合在开车时哼唱的歌曲——有时会令人心情愉悦，但大多数就只是能忍受的水平。专辑很大程度上被刺耳声和过度修饰的制作干扰：拍手声、分层的、扭曲的人声、夸张的合成声。在歌曲”WOW“中，制作人Marshmello将Zara Larsson无精打采的声音用摇摇欲坠的bass掩盖住，把她令人窒息的“Make your jaw drop–drop”的hook片段连续重复十次。

Larsson and her collaborators — a cast that includes Dua Lipa producer Ian Kirpatrick and boy-band whisperer Mike Sabath — have a penchant for clumsy lyrics, slippery vowels, and mangled subject/verb agreement. “Is this a story arc/’Cause if it are/We’d be iconic,” she chirps over bleating, tinny beats on “FFF,” apparently code for “Falling for a Friend.” The song fumbles over a well-tread narrative in pop, a “Will they or won’t they” dynamic with no charm or suspense. The title track is supposedly dedicated to Larsson’s love for weed, with a chorus of “Holy smokes!” and gasps about “sweet organic healing,” but the song crumbles under its own nonsense:“Someone call a lifeboat,” Larsson moans, “Because I’m drowning in your vibe.”

Zara Larsson与她合作者们——阵容包括Dua Lipa的制作人Ian Kirpatrick和男团御用掌托人Ian Kirpatrick——很偏爱愚蠢的歌词，含糊的元音和混乱的主/动词搭配。如：“Is this a story arc/’Cause if it are/We’d be iconic,”她在歌曲”FFF“咩咩叫，尖细刺耳节拍下的叽喳乱语，显然“FFF”是“Falling for a Friend.”的缩写编码，这首歌胡乱摸索着流行音乐的叙事方式，充满“Will they or Will not they”（他们会还是不会）的多变，没有任何魅力或悬念。专辑同名曲“Poster Girl”应该是表达Zara Larsson对大ma的喜爱，副歌唱道“Holy smokes!”，在“sweet organic healing,”处气喘吁吁，但这首歌却在自己的胡言乱语崩塌了：“Someone call a lifeboat,” Zara Larsson呻吟道，“Because I’m drowning in your vibe.”

It’s easy to pinpoint Larsson’s influences, a “Who’s Who” of 2011 radio. The sludgy Young Thug duet “Talk About Love” rehashes Lil Wayne’s croaking Auto-Tuned ballad “How to Love.” The half-spoken bridge in “What Happens Here” tries on early Kesha cadences—“Even if I kiss it, touch it, feel it,” she drawls. What’s harder here is identifying Larsson herself; these songs seem like glitzy containers with nothing inside. When she started making music, Larsson told MTV recently, she didn’t focus on formulating lyrics or testing out guitar chords but on crafting the persona of a star. “I would stand in front of my mirror and sing into a fake mic and tell my fake crowd, ‘I can't hear you! Sing it louder’,” she said. “Poster Girl” is so enraptured with this idealized vision of a pop star that it leaves no room to learn about the woman behind the mic.

很容易确定Zara Larsson受到谁的影响，就是在2011年热单中活跃的人物。与Young Thug的拉跨合作曲“Talk About Love”是对Lil Wayne Auto-Tuned沙哑声民谣歌曲“How to Love”的失败改编。歌曲“What Happens Here”在半说半唱的bridge处尝试了Kesha早期的歌唱方式——“Even if I kiss it, touch it, feel it,” Zara拖音唱道。但很难挖掘Zara Larsson自身，这些歌像没有装任何东西的光鲜夺目的容器。据Zara Larsson最近的MTV采访，表示当她最开始尝试做音乐时，并没有专注于构思歌词或测试吉他和弦，而是专注于塑造一个明星的形象。“我会站在镜子前，对着假麦克风唱歌，对着假人群说，‘我听不见你们唱歌！再大声点唱，’'”她说道。专辑《Poster Girl》对这种理想化的流行歌星形象如此痴迷，以至于没有留下任何空间让听众去了解麦克风后面的那个女人。